Monday, January 28, 2013

Jude Law Lists in London's Maida Vale

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: About two years ago, two-time Oscar nominated British actor Jude Law and his on-again/off-again/on-again gal-pal Siena Miller picked up a £7-plus million property in North London's hoity-toity and star-studded Highgate neighborhood.

We don't know when or if Mister Law (and Miss Miller) moved into their big new house in Highgate where some of the neighboring residences are owned by folks like supermodel Kate Moss, actor Clive Owens, pop star George Michael and veteran rock star Sting and wife Trudy Styler but thanks to an English informant we'll call Bree Tish we've learned that Mister Law has listed his four-floor, Grade II listed Georgian style house on the border between London's natty Maida Vale nabe and the even more posh St. John's Wood 'hood.

Online listings forwarded by Miss Tish show the asking price set at £4,350,000. A few quick clicks on Your Mama's trusty currency conversion contraption shows that equals $6,869,910 (U.S.) at today's rates.

According to Miss Tish, Mister Law's walled and gated residence sits on a very busy thoroughfare across from a high-rise social housing complex. Not the most elegant location but as anyone who'se ever lived in a major metropolitan area, urban living sometimes pushes the privileged up against the less financially fortunate.

Anyhoo, a good-sized gated and graveled motor court with what appears to be a single car garage in front provides enviably generous off-street parking and the rear garden extends a unusually deep 144-feet.

Listing information indicates the raised main floor contains an entrance hall with powder pooper and a double reception room, both filled with all sorts of interesting unusual objects like an over-sized Pez dispenser, an under-sized Foosball machine, a classic Eames lounger, lots of artwork both on the walls and leaning against the walls and scores of books stacked on just about every flat surface. The children will note that the decidedly eclectic decorative chaos is cleverly balanced by matching circular mirrors mounted above the simple fireboxes that anchor the outer wall of each room.

As best as Your Mama can tell from listing information, the partially subterranean lower ground floor contains a guest/staff bedroom, utility rooms, a family room with blood red walls and an all-glass garden view conservatory-style dining room furnished a giant farmhouse table. Also on the lower ground floor—we think—is a U-shaped kitchen with a country house meets city living vibe that's expensively outfitted with slate tile floors, crisp white Shaker style cabinetry, gleaming black granite counter tops, a white porcelain farmhouse style sink and high-grade stainless steel appliances. Regrettably the cabinets stop just shy of the ceiling, a ugly situation that creates a hard-to clean space ripe for growing buffalo sized dust bunnies.

Marketing materials and listing photographs suggest there are two guest/family bedrooms that share a bathroom/shower room plus a master suite with attached dressing room and en suite facility. It's not the low ceilings or the deep burgundy-colored walls in the master bedroom that make Your Mama most squeamish but rather all that stuff tucked up under the bed. If there's anything we loathe more than a lethal-looking pot rack in the kitchen it's a bunch of visible shit shoved up underneath a bed.

*We're not 100% sure the actual count is four-to-five bedrooms and three-point-five bathrooms. We've come up with that number based on a careful parse of somewhat vague online marketing materials which aren't—as it turns our—terribly specific abotu such things.

And Mumsy, you've tooted a little too much G&T before writing this column, as it is as clear as mud until one reviews all photos that in one instance you discuss the property for sale and in the second the property purchased, namely a different property. OK, you're allowed to slipp up once in a while, we forgive you.